SOUTHFIELD (AP) -- Prominent American Conservative Jewish leader Rabbi Irwin Groner has died of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 81.

Groner died Sunday at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. His funeral was Tuesday in Southfield at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, Michigan's leading Conservative Jewish congregation where he presided for 36 years.

He was president in 1990-92 of the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents Conservative Jewish rabbis worldwide.

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He was ordained at Hebrew Theological College in his native Chicago and came to Shaarey Zedek as an assistant rabbi in 1959. He became senior rabbi after the assassination of Rabbi Morris Adler, serving from 1967 until he assumed emeritus status in 2003.